Video: Another example of anecdotitis

posted at 8:30 am on February 27, 2010 by Ed Morrissey

Last week, I wrote that Nancy Pelosi’s insistence that the ObamaCare bill is really a jobs bill was the weirdest moment of the health-care summit, but Duane Patterson disagreed — and he’s right. With the Democrats already suffering from anecdotitis while Republicans talked policy and finances, Rep. Louise Slaughter offered the strangest one of all. She tells a tale of a woman who couldn’t afford her own dentures, and so had to use a second-hand set from her deceased sister. See if you can guess what’s wrong with the Tale of the Teeth:

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Louise Slaughter was my rep in Congress. Her list of cluelessness episodes is quite long. A few examples from just one Town Hall Meeting in Grand Island, NY:

She condemned CIA Director Tenant for saying it was a slam dunk that Sadam had WMD after claiming that noone at the CIA had told Bush that Sadam had WMD.

When asked if she supported renewing the Bush Tax cuts she said that she did not think they were scheduled to expire.

Elsewhere, when asked for her solution to reinvigorate the Western New York economy, she advocated savings accounts for High School Students subsidized by matching grants from local businesses.

Louise’s District is over 60% Dem created by linking the urban areas of Buffalo and Rochester via a slender thread of land running through Niagara Falls and the Lake Ontario lakefront. Even the best republican candidates can only get 42%. Sadly, she is quite safe.

Dick Durban’s claim that the oxygen caught fire during a surgery is the sort of statement that would get a Republican condemned because it is not the oxygen that catches fire, it is something combustible in the presence of oxygen that catches fire.

My Dad owned a dental lab for almost 40 years. There is no way the sisters dentures would fit the lady. They are custom made from an impression of the individual they are made for. if you tried to use another persons dentures it would be too painful. The whole thing is bogus to begin with.

What a ghoul that Louise Slaughter is. Do we know if she bothered to buy new dentures for that woman? (I mean out of her own considerable salary.) What am I asking, of course she did not. Wicked politicians only care about the misfortunes of others in so far as they can be used to secure more power for themselves. I bet her first and only thought was “how do I use this?” rather than “we should do a collection for that poor woman.”

I wish some Republican would have asked her, “what did you do as an individual to help that woman, other than using her to try to pass this awful legislation that will not help her anyway?”.

Answer: ObamaCare won’t cover dentures. It doesn’t include dental coverage. It’s a complete non-sequitur. It’s even more silly than griping about an attempt to file an insurance claim under a policy that hadn’t been purchased.

I pointed that out in live time.

Another problem with a strange antidote:

Obama’s strange story about the liability insurance he purchased on his car before an accident… that didn’t cover collisions. Duh. (The lack of understanding these folks have is astounding!)

But since most of the 30 million they are “covering” will be put on Medicaid, which is already bankrupt and is losing doctors even as we speak…

That is exactly the same as having “coverage” but no actual “health care!”

Management by anecdote is a certain sign of incompetence. “If you can’t impress them with your facts, dazzle them with your B.S.” The B.S. is typically anecdotal. If Obama had ever run even a lemon-aid stand, he would know that.

Mr President, you are in sooo far over your head, you could use the whale feces to pull yourself upward.

Due to our slow dial up connection, I’m not able to watch the linked video. However, judging by various comments asking if Rep. Slaughter had done anything to help the woman get new dentures, I’m guessing she didn’t quite give all the details of this story at the health care summit.

This is what the Buffalo News reported in their print edition on 2/26, page A2: “Slaughter’s office said she learned of the Buffalo woman’s story from Dr. Lavonne Ansari of the Community Health Center of Buffalo.

Ansari described the woman as an African-American in her 70s from one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods, who spoke of her dentures at a health fair about a year ago. The center gave the woman her own dentures.”

So, who effectively helped this woman get new dentures, the nanny state, or local community services? Since the lady got her dentures a year ago, at no cost to her, why did Slaughter even bring it up??

So I guess her point was that we should spend 2 1/2 trillion dollars over the next 10 years to stamp out the dread “second hand denture” crisis that is stalking America. Unfortunately, even after spending this money denture expenditures are one of the few things not mentioned in any of the 4,500 pages in the House or Senate version of Obamacare. Perhaps we can cut a few hundred billion more from Medicare to fix this urgent problem. Just think of it as an investment in your future.

It’s even more silly than griping about an attempt to file an insurance claim under a policy that hadn’t been purchased.

For those who are not familiar with that type of policy, it only covered property damage and personal injury, usually with very high deductables. Those who bought it did so just to buy their tags or keep their license.

Obama made it sound like it was a scam created by the insurance companies. The truth was the scam was mandated by law to the insurance companies that they would offer a low cost insurnace when states required insurance on a vehical. The companies did not want to sell them and the agents did not want to sell them, but they had to. As an agent, everytime I sold one it like playing Russian Rollett. What could happen is someone would by the policy, then if an accident happen, hire a lawyer who would win on the basis that they did not know what they bought because a “lawyer” had not explained it to them. The company and the agent would be held responsible for the cost of damage and medical injuries. I find it interesting that a communitive organiser and preported lawyer, would spin a fabrication on this, let alone, put himself into it.

Unfortunately, even after spending this money denture expenditures are one of the few things not mentioned in any of the 4,500 pages in the House or Senate version of Obamacare

The bill has nothing to do with real medical care. It is the vehical that communist and socilist have said for decades ,since 1944, they must have for any “hope” to flip American into socialism and to “change” a republic into a democracy.

Our republic has fifty states with rights and one federal goverment.

Our democracy would have one large state goverment, with 50 controlled regions answering to the state.

I don’t beleive it is possible to use someone else’s dentures since they are made by molding your mouth and your mouth is as unique to a person as a finger print. If you did put someone else’s teeth in your mouth they would not fit and certainly would not allow you to eat any better than you could without the dentures because it would be very painful and might even not allow you to chew at all.
The better question is what someone else mentioned. Did the Dem party take up donations and buy that poor old lady teeth? No they probably just heard the bull crap story and decided to use her name to advance their agenda.
To bad they won’t be covering dental anyway. They want us to end up like England. National health insurance that is worthless and BAD teeth!

She sure has a southern accent for a representative of the great state of New York. The country folk there don’t sound like they’re from NYC but they also don’t sound like they’re from south of the Mason-Dixon line either. Can you say gerrymandering?

What concerns me (in addition to numerous others) are the number of people in congress (both parties) who have little to no familiarity with the Health Care Bill. The level of ignorance , when I consider that they all have staffs to do research for them, is nothing short of shocking. And then the press just gives these idiots a free pass. Time after time after time.